There are many opportunities in the Forex market for you to be successful. One of the best ways is to join programs that will allow you to learn Forex while making a living from it. I think it’s a good deal because as you learn how to be successful, you’re actually operating and… being successful. It seems like a perfect win-win situation.
Another principle I’ve learned and tried to help others with is trusting your settings. Beginning Forex traders need to know how to look for a potentially good trade, and then what is the best time to enter that trade. Along with entry times, they should also know, point by point, how to find the best time to exit the trade. That’s what it means to learn to trust your settings. A setup is the market setup for a trend or entry point.
So the big question is how do we learn to trust our setups? The answer is so simple; It borders on sarcasm. The ONLY way to learn to trust something is to continually use it. The ONLY way to learn to trust a pilot is to fly often. The ONLY reason I trust my seat to hold me is because I have sat in it many times. So how do I learn to trust my setups…by continually practicing them? That’s right, practice, practice, practice. Forex trading is like American football; it is a contact sport and can only be mastered through endless repetitions.
I still believe that one of the biggest mistakes many beginner traders make is that they try to learn on their demo accounts. It helps you make a lot of “money”, but you never learn to take risks properly. Trading on a demo account is good for what it’s worth, but it creates a false sense of control and an exaggerated sense of importance, especially if you’re trading hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars of demo. Demo trading is good for only one thing and that is getting to know the broker’s trading software.
I think once you are done learning the software it is a good idea to start trading with real money; albeit small amounts, but real money nonetheless. Why? In many of my previous articles, I write about the psychology of Forex trading. You will never be able to replicate the psychological pressures of real trading unless you have invested some “skin” in the game. It’s not until you play with your own money that you really start to take this thing seriously.
The more you trade your setup in real market conditions, the more patient you will become and the more you can trust your setup and yourself. Let’s ditch those demonstrations and learn how to start trusting ourselves and our training.
As always, happy trading.
